Is anyone else liking the 8pm CST start? In the Blues prior game, a loss, against the Stars, the Blues didn’t start playing until about 8:15pm or so. Maybe the late start helped them Saturday night as they jumped out to a 2-0 lead less than halfway through the 1st period.
Vladimir Tarasenko opened the scoring only 34 seconds into the game. Pat Maroon extended the lead to 2 goals less than 10 minutes later with Oskar Sundqvist getting the primary assist, a dandy to Maroon who was driving the far post. Ben Biship moved into position well but whiffed on the deflection.
The NHL’s 2nd star of the week, Jordan Binngton helped to keep the 2nd period scoreless. On Saturday, the Blues wouldn’t blow another 2 goal, third period lead. Of course, it got a bit interesting as Erik Condra cut the lead to one, becoming the 1st shooter to cleanly beat Binnington in one of his NHL stars (own goal deflections don’t count as cleanly beating).
The Blues would rally with Tarasenko’s 2nd goal of the game about four minutes later. In addition to helping seal the game, the goal was noteworthy as it was the Tarasenko release of old. Watch how the puck whips off his stick without any real backswing
here. I hadn’t seen this type of release from him in a while. If he can do this consistently, he’ll start climbing up the goals chart.
Jaden Schwartz had another 4 shots in the game without a goal, pushing his shooting % down to 3.8%, almost 10% below his career average at the start of the season. That’s gross % reduction, not proportionate % reduction.
Oskar Sundqvist had two quality assists, some great hustle back-checking and an overall superb game in 17:32 of ice time. Jay Bouwmeester had another strong game with two assists in 25:16, the most ice time of any Blues skater. Jordan Binnington was strong again, stopping 21 of 22 shots.
The road trip continues tonight in Washington where the capitals will be looking to avenge their 5-2 loss in St. Louis on January 3rd. Pheonix Copley will get the start as the Capitals will be cautious with Braden Holtby who was clipped by a stick in their game against Columbus.
The Blues will be once again looking for their 1st three game winning streak. They will have some lineup changes with Jordan Kyrou and Jordan Nolan entering the lineup and Robby Fabbri and Mackenzi MacEachern sitting. The lines should start like this:
Schwartz - Schenn - Tarasenko
Sanford - O'Reilly – Perron
Maroon - Sundqvist - Kyrou
Nolan - Barbashev - Blais
Edmundson - Pietrangelo
Bouwmeester - Parayko
Bortuzzo - Dunn
Allen
Binnington will likely start tomorrow against the Islanders.
NHL Champions for Charity
We’ve gotten some traction on the charity wager among the Central Division bloggers. More on that to come.
It’s a great day for hockey.
St Louis Blues Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»